Wind Farms: Coming Soon to a WSR-88D Near You

[mikegeukes]

Here is a article about wind farms and how they affect the radar products.

Wind Farms:Coming Soon to a WSR-88D Near You
http://www.osf.noaa.gov/news/NNautumn08d1.pdf

Mike
http://stormchasingweather.blogspot.com

 

[mikegeukes]

Another site worth checking out.

Wind Farm Interaction with NEXRAD
http://www.roc.noaa.gov/windfarm/windfarm_index.asp

Mike
http://stormchasingweather.blogspot.com

 

[Jason Boggs]

Here are some areas with false reflectivity due to wind farms that I know of.

 

[Bob Hartig]

There is a new Windfarms download on GRLevelXStuff.com that shows the locations of windfarms--including the number of windmills at each farm--across the US. I downloaded it into my Giibson Ridge radar software a couple days ago. Works beautifully.

There's also a forum discussion thread that describes the relevance of windfarms pretty thoroughly.

 

[Chad Cowan]

I can't tell you how many times I've mis-called initiation because of the wind farm southwest of DDC.

 

[David Draun]

Also certain electric plants, I think the nuclear ones mostly, show up as high reflectivity under certain conditions. I believe the air has to be somewhat moist for them to show up.

 

[rdale]

It's not the plant itself showing, it's the steam coming from the cooling tower.

 

[David Draun]

I know that. Thank you, Captain Obvious! :>

Also the heating plant steam cloud here on campus sometimes shows up on radar, if the steam can get up above the beam height.

 

[Tyler_Costantini]

You can see the Beaumont, KS wind farm on KICT quite often. I read that they are going to work with the electric companies to try and keep the interference to a minimum. I would think that they will figure out some what to write some clutter suppression code that can tell its coming from a wind farm either by the returns or pre programming the location of the wind farm into the 88d software, at least I hope!


But it’s something that’s going to be more and more of an issue, here in Kansas they are throwing up wind farms left and right without one thought of negative effects in general.

 

[Sean Mullen]

Here is a article about wind farms and how they affect the radar products.

Wind Farms:Coming Soon to a WSR-88D Near You
http://www.osf.noaa.gov/news/NNautumn08d1.pdf

Here's an article on how wind farms could affect more than just the radar:

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/11/25/wind-farms-weather.html

If they really could steer storms, slipping the wind farm operators on duty a little cashola could save some chasers a lot of money for gas, lodging, etc.

Just a thought.....

Sean

 

[Tim Newman]

Snow on Top

I can't tell you how many times I've mis-called initiation because of the wind farm southwest of DDC.

Here in our EOC in Hutchinson, KS, the windfarm at Montezuma, KS (SW of DDC and about 130 miles away from us) shows up on our Baron ThreatNet Plus as a large white circle whenever there is enough snow to sit on top of those things for a while. In December 2006 it was there for almost two weeks.

 

[Chris Bowman]

The wind farm along I-70 in Lincoln and Ellsworth counties in central KS occasionally shows up from KICT. I was amazed when I realized what it was one morning because it's so far from the RDA and I had never seen that wind farm show up before.

 

[Pat Darrow]

Saw this in a Denver newspaper: http://www.thedenverchannel.com/weather/20570799/detail.html

 

[Paul Knightley]

Here's an article on how wind farms could affect more than just the radar:

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/11/25/wind-farms-weather.html

If they really could steer storms, slipping the wind farm operators on duty a little cashola could save some chasers a lot of money for gas, lodging, etc.

Just a thought.....

Sean

Fairly ridiculous article though, because there are never going to be anywhere near that many turbines!!